Delta Claims To Be The Premium Airline But They’re Serving 7-11 Bubbly In Airport Lounges

by Gary Leff

May 30 2021

At the Wolfe Research conference yesterday Glen Hauenstein remarked that Delta had 53 Sky Clubs open pre-pandemic and will have 53 open in June. There’s an emphasis on premium product coming out of the recent challenging period. Delta believes that by offering customers more they can get customers to spend more on premium products which are “higher margin.”

But what if they’re achieving that margin by claiming to offer a premium product, but they’re really offering something you can buy at 7-11?

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US Government May Issue Voluntary Vaccine Passports For Travel

by Gary Leff

May 29 2021

Countries that have been opening to vaccinated Americans are accepting CDC vaccine cards as ‘proof’ of vaccination. These are pieces of cardstock you can print off the internet, and real ones are often filled out by hand. There is no central federal database of who has had a vaccine, those specifics are generally held at the state level – and the quality of recordkeeping varies dramatically.

The Secretary of Homeland Security says vaccine passports are under serious consideration as a way of helping Americans meet the requirements of entry for foreign countries.

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American Airlines Says They’ll Keep Boarding Planes Before The Time Printed On Your Boarding Pass

by Gary Leff

british tail plane
May 29 2021

For six years I’ve written about the frustration where American Airlines would begin boarding planes prior to scheduled boarding time. That often meant showing up at the gate correctly, finding the aircraft mostly boarded, and not having any overhead bin space left.

Customers don’t like it, flight attendants don’t like it, but a union is telling members that the airline believes they can keep on doing it.

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To Cut Staffing At Gates, American Airlines Will Start Clearing Standbys And Nonrevs Earlier

by Gary Leff

register
May 29 2021

Unfortunately a policy change that accompanies the American Airlines move to single agent boarding for flights that are less than 80% full will make it tougher to get onto an earlier flight or to have options during irregular operations, too.

Agent Assist (automated system) will “auto clear revenue and non-revenue customers on certain domestic mainline flights with load factors below 80% …at D-60.”

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Passenger Denied Boarding In Covid-19 Testing Catch-22, Finds Nonsensical Workaround

by Gary Leff

May 29 2021

To fly from the U.K. to Ireland you need a negative PCR Covid-19 test. One woman, a U.K. health care worker, was denied boarding for her flight from Birmingham to Dublin despite having a negative PCR test.

The government doesn’t accept her test, because it was provided by the government – even though it isn’t one of the tests listed as unacceptable. Fortunately there was a workaround to add an enroute stop and avoid the non-sensical requirement.

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